The stakes of the U.S. communications policy debates are larger than many assume. Subjecting broadband to new and extensive regulation in the U.S., says FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell in today's Wall Street Journal, could invite a regulatory ripple effect across the globe.
The FCC proposed in June to regulate broadband Internet access services using laws written for monopoly phone companies. Despite a four-decade bipartisan and international consensus to insulate computer-oriented communications from phone regulation, the FCC is headed toward classifying these complex 21st century technologies as "telecommunications services." This could inadvertently trigger ITU and, ultimately, U.N. jurisdiction over parts of the Internet. Unlike at the U.N. Security Council, the U.S. has no veto power at the ITU and may not be able to stop it.
Such an outcome would fundamentally alter the Internet's long-standing and successful self-governance model, where stakeholders from industry, academia, and yes, nations and NGOs, collaborate on technical, cultural, and economic matters. The ITU has been searching for ways to exert more "muscle" on the Net, and the possible U.S. action would appear to only strengthen the UN's hand. As I wrote last week,
The worry is that the UN could become not a true forum for Internet advancement and cooperation but a murky bureaucracy that governments use to impose rules and taxes on others and to cloak their own illiberal regimes. The Internet is the true multilateral instrument of diversity, transparency, and cooperation, not the politicians groping for control in its name.
Or, as the FCC's McDowell concludes:
The best way to keep the Internet open, operating and growing is to maintain the current model. We should continue to rely on the "bottom up" nongovernmental Internet governance bodies that have a perfect record of keeping the Web working.
Changing course now could trigger an avalanche of irreversible international regulation.
Written by Bret Swanson, President of Entropy Economics
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